{"id":972,"date":"2015-04-14T15:10:54","date_gmt":"2015-04-14T15:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wombatsdigit.com\/w\/?p=972"},"modified":"2015-04-14T15:10:54","modified_gmt":"2015-04-14T15:10:54","slug":"dennis-lehane-on-his-newest-book-and-missing-boston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wombatsdigit.com\/w\/dennis-lehane-on-his-newest-book-and-missing-boston\/","title":{"rendered":"Dennis Lehane on his Newest Book and Missing Boston"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dennis did a spot for WGBH<\/a> a little while ago in which\u00c2\u00a0he talks a little about his latest book, his connection to Boston, even though he’s now living on the west coast. It’s a short but sweet interview but obviously the part that resonated with me was this:<\/p>\n

I think you write better when you are homesick. [… T]he next book is set in Boston. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m writing it from California. I’m thinking about Boston all the time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s a long history of the exiled writer, whether self- or Hollywood-imposed, and I wholeheartedly agree, I think (and others may not agree) that my best writing comes when I’m writing about home. For example,\u00c2\u00a0Butterfly<\/em><\/a> (which may be retitled William Murphy’s Trop to the Quiet Room<\/i>, for sake of trying to hook an agent’s interest) is set in Worcester, Massachusetts, the town in which I was born; a little bit in that venerable tourist attraction, Old Sturbridge Village,<\/a> just down the street from where I grew up; and Cape Cod, a favorite vacation spot from my youth (and still). For each of the interminable drafts I sat in my grandparent’s floor in a three decker on Hillside Street, wandered the muddy spring paths of Old Sturbridge Village, probably with a stick of rock candy in my hand, or sat with my back against the dunes down on\u00c2\u00a0Nauset Light Beach. Which is to say I use that feeling of homesickness to try and make the scenes that little bit more vivid, much like Dennis Lehane does and Joyce did with Ulysses<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0(with far greater commercial and just plain old regular success).<\/p>\n

[polldaddy poll=”8800013″]<\/p>\n

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Dennis Lehane is appearing at Listowel Writers’ Week<\/a>, which has an amazing lineup this year. If you’re in the area at the end of May you really shouldn’t miss it. Tell Anne Enright<\/a> I sent you.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dennis did a spot for WGBH a little while ago in which\u00c2\u00a0he talks a little about his latest book, his connection to Boston, even though he’s now living on the west coast. It’s a short but sweet interview but obviously the part that resonated with me was this: I think you write better when you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8,12,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-butterfly","category-nonsense","category-reading","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wombatsdigit.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wombatsdigit.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wombatsdigit.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wombatsdigit.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wombatsdigit.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wombatsdigit.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wombatsdigit.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wombatsdigit.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wombatsdigit.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}